The chains used in the marine industry for anchoring or other applications are large and therefore very heavy and difficult to handle. Furthermore, said chains often undergo wear and frequently deteriorate over time, requiring the replacement of damaged parts.
This replacement is usually performed in the sea water, or by bringing the chains needing linking out of the water to replace the damaged parts, such operations being complicated due to their size and hence the weight of the elements to be handled and subsequently linked. If these operations are to be performed on land, they become too expensive.
On the other hand there are also several ways of performing such replacements under the sea, the most common being the use of divers wearing diving suits or by using special robots. The problem is that at the time of performing the chain replacement, it is carried out with the chain in a vertical position without any kind of support, complicating the replacement task due to the inconvenience of not having the chain supported by any additional element that could help with the chain-linking work.